 |
| National Archives |
Corporal Wilson (who now had real stripes on his jacket, courtesy of Pvt Melvin Katz) and his team were cautiously approaching the small coast road, Sergeant Brandt and his team were in an overwatch position covering the movement of Wilson's guys. Though they were near the coast, as VII Corps had cut the Cotentin Peninsula severing Cherbourg and it's garrison from the rest of the German Army, they were still in hedgerow country. They were all heartily sick of the claustrophobic nature of fighting in this closed in world.
Wilson signaled the men to hold and get down, Pvt Simpson was a little slow in responding, so Pvt Charlie Monroe put a hand on Simpson's shoulder and pushed him down, muttering, "Jesus Woody, you gotta pay attention." He probably saved Simpson's life, but the round meant for Simpson, fired by a German sniper about a hundred yards away, had hit Monroe in the lower abdomen.
Charlie felt like he'd just taken a punch, a hard punch. He went down on one knee, then fell onto his back, the pain was extraordinary.
"SNIPER!! IN THE TREES!!!" Corporal Wilson yelled as he opened up on where he thought the sniper was. The rest of the squad fired as well, shredding the tree from whence they figured the shot had come.
"TOO HIGH!! TOO HIGH, THE BASTARD'S UNDER THE TREE!!" Pvt Fred Thomas, who was above Wilson's position with Sgt Brant's team, saw something in the treeline so he had shouted out, then lowered his aim and his BAR was soon chopping up the underbrush beneath the tree Cpl Wilson had initially fired on.
 |
| Bundesarchiv |
Obergefreiter Max Vogel had cycled the bolt on his rifle and was about to move. The enemy fire was dropping leaves all over him. Somehow the Amis had spotted him. But they were aiming high. He chuckled as he started to slide back into the underbrush. Keeping his face to the enemy he slowly moved back, but something, he didn't know what, gave him away.
He was hit by three rounds, none immediately fatal, but the one in his leg may have clipped something. He was bleeding badly. As he fumbled for his field bandage, he thought to cut his pant leg, see how bad the wound was, funny though, he was getting really sleepy.
The young sniper from Wedding, a suburb of Berlin, was too slow. One of the rounds from Fred Thomas's Browning Automatic Rifle hadn't just clipped Vogel's femoral artery, it had severed it completely. Vogel had bled to death as he attempted to save himself.
Pvt Monroe was holding his belly tight, the pain was fierce. He didn't realize it but he was grunting in pain.
"MEDIC!!!"
Woody knew that if they didn't get Doc up here quick, Charlie was a goner. But it was Jack Wilson who had yelled for the medic. Woody really didn't know what to do.
When Brandt heard the call for the medic, his blood ran cold. But T/4 Harry Milbury, who had accompanied the patrol, was heading towards Wilson's position in an instant.
"COVERING FIRE!!" Sergeant Brandt bellowed as Doc scrambled through the brush. The squad was drenching the treeline where the sniper was, they were pissed.
"Move your hands Charlie, I got you. I got you. Grab his hands Woody."
Pvt Simpson pulled Charlie's hands away from his belly, there was a lot of blood. Charlie was still grunting from the pain and had Woody's arm in a steel grip as Doc cut away the clothing from around the wound site.
He took a pressure bandage from his kit and a sulfa packet, the sulfa he covered the wound with, and then he managed, with Jack's help, to get the bandage around Charlie's belly. While it was bloody, Doc didn't think the round had hit anything vital. When they'd rolled Charlie to get the bandage around him, Doc saw an exit wound. Seemed like the bullet had gone through the muscles and not the intestine, but you never knew where a bullet traveled once it got inside you.
Pulling a morphine syrette from his musette bag, Doc injected it into Charlie. In seconds Charlie relaxed. As the drug went to work, Doc bent the needle of the syrette and hooked it into the collar of Charlie's field jacket.
"We need to get this man back to the aid station, battalion surgeon needs to look at him."
Sergeant Brandt had Wilson's team carry Charlie back, "Get him to the battalion aid station, MOVE!"
After that, Bill had his team spread out in a skirmish line, he told Fred to stay back and provide fire support as needed. The field was quiet, but the damned rain was starting up again. It had been raining most of the day, the skies were overcast, and they hadn't seen a friendly aircraft since the day before.
They found the German, he was just a kid, he looked peaceful somehow. But the rain was washing the kid's blood into the French soil and pooling in his dead eyes. He sure hoped Charlie was going to make it. He didn't hate this dead German who had badly wounded one of his guys, just doing his job I guess.
"Whatcha thinking Sarge?" Pvt Tremblay asked, his sergeant reminded him of his own Papa when they'd found his uncle, dead, down by the bayou. Sarge looked kind of sad and thoughtful, like life had just put too much on the man's shoulders.
The guys were startled when Sergeant Brandt spoke, the man seldom used language harsher than the occasional "damn."
Sergeant Bill Brandt tipped his helmet back and said, "Fellows, I hate this f**king war."
I hear you Sgt. Brandt. Of all the ugly I've been close to, tried to clean up, never asked for but was tasked with... I have you 5 by 5....
ReplyDeleteSometimes it all gets to be a bit much.
DeleteI said it before and I will say it again, you have a gift. These stories are amazing. I look forward to reading them each day
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be at this a while! (Hope I can keep it interesting.)
DeleteThere’s nothing romantic about battle.
ReplyDeleteIt sucks!
Yes, indeed.
DeleteAnd yet there are few people who get addicted to battle adrenaline rush. I think it was General Lee that quipped that "it is good that war is so terrible, otherwise we would love it too much."
DeleteThere are some, a rare minority, who do love battle. Patton was one, Lee was another.
DeleteIt's this weird, tingly, alive sensation. Several battle-lovers have described it to me as such. Like suddenly the world is sharp and in focus. Kind of like the adrenaline rush from almost falling while climbing.
DeleteWeird how the human body reacts to stress. What turns one into a quivering mass turns another into an automaton turns another into a smiling, laughing beserk turns another into a shouting angry creature.
Though not in battle or war, I've felt similar awakeness when almost but not quite swamping a small boat and surviving, coming out of a car crash without injuries and, well, SCA fighting. One of my teachers said my only fault was I loved it so much I didn't notice what was happening to me, I'd be one of those who survived the battle and afterwards went, "Oh, I'm hit," and fall down. (Or as one of my PE coaches said, "You're too stupid to quit, aren't you, boy?" in referring to me getting up and back into fights that I was losing.)
On the other hand, without stubborness and, in some respects, love for fighting, we all would have still stayed primarily as vegetarian scavengers and carrion eaters, and not gotten the huge rush of proteins that helped develop our brains into what they are.
The only problem with 'The Warrior' mentality is surviving not having the rush of combat. Some can't, once they become 'The Warrior' and it eats at them. They feel hollow, empty, and turn to stupid stuff like drink and drugs to try to fill the hole. While others who are definitely not 'The Warrior' turn to drink and drugs to forget.
Face it, humans are weird. Thankfully.
Humans are weird.
DeleteLike clearing a building you find open, at 0300. Your body is tense, and the adrenaline flows. I don't like the feeling.
DeleteEvolution has taught us that that particular event is probably not good!
DeleteOr staring down a female wild hog with pack of piglets when coming down home from late shift... Happened to me not long ago, I froze and they just passed the road into bushes on the other side, less than 20 meters from me. Lucky for them traffic is light there at night, one day car could end their lives.
DeleteLuckily not a boar near, Pawel. For that case, I want nothing less than an AR or AK in 6.5mm or higher. I know I shouldn't need more than the 5 rounds in my Mauser bolt-action, but I want full and very quick assurance. Hogs are bad news! Especially since some moron long ago imported wild boars into the US, so it's not just domestic hogs gone feral, but some true wild boar genes, too. I'd rather run into a black bear than a wild boar. Now a grizzly or Alaskan brown bear, that's another story. Though I'd insist even more strenuously on a semi-auto with 20 rounds of 6.5mm or 7.62mm!!!
DeleteA sniper is probably infantrymans worst enemy. If you are first in his sight it is usually end of the road. Tanks are big and scary, but have often limited vision and need infantry support themselves. Against artillery you can take cover. Even aircraft bombing can be survived with some luck. But sniper has your name on his bullet. A good sniper, not a rookie like German here, could have stalled a company for hours, picking off chain of command and specialists. That GI platoon got lucky.
ReplyDeleteThere are snipers, real snipers, who went to special schools to learn their trade. Often a guy who is a good shot will be tasked with that duty without all the professional schooling. The professionals are the most dangerous, they aim for officers, radiomen, sergeants, any target whose loss can stymie the enemy's advance. I have read of entire platoons just stopping because a favorite officer was killed by a sniper.
DeleteGood eye noting that Vogel wasn't one of the real pros.
Of course, in Normandy every German tank was a Tiger, every gun was an 88, and every guy who was hit was hit by a sniper.
The horror of 'The Lone Gunman' picking off one here, another there, over hours, is one of the most frightening things ever. Death from... nowhere.
DeleteVogel screwed up by taking the shot and not immediately either dropping down and being totally still or by shifting positions safely. Gifted amateur, in a very harsh learning environment.
I've read of snipers who purposely shoot non-critical personnel who are around a critical person, in order to break that person. Others have shot to wound, and then picked off those who came to help.
And with some of the really quiet systems out there, firing subsonic rounds out of suppressed weapons, in a chaotic environment Silent Death awaits. That's got to be extremely stressful, dealing with the sniper who you have no idea where he/she is shooting from. Urban areas do roughly the same thing, can amplify or mute sounds, making it hard to determine where the round is coming from.
In the Pacific, the Japanese used snipers to great effect. And their rifle made an excellent sniper weapon, being very flat firing and very accurate. It got so bad that standard practice was to use a flamethrower on any tree top in sight, or just raking the trees with machine gun fire just to be sure. And all too often, a cautious blast of fire would find a sniper. Really slowed the speed of advance in the Central Pacific campaigns. Really really slowed. Like glacially, and infantry wouldn't move unless they were covered by cannon and machine gun fire, for good reason.
Back in the day it was pretty much a rifle and a scope, no real sniping systems per se. That's a modern innovation.
DeleteAs far as I remember, rifles especially accurate at factory trials were picked up for converting into sniper weapons. Vogel had been much too close, a good sniper would have picked a long firelane, allowing him to hit targets from outside effective spotting distance. Even bocage had such places.
DeleteYes, that's how sniper rifles were selected during most of the last century, even the US M1D Garand. They weren't really manufactured (except for necessary add-ons), they were selected during proof firing.
DeleteAlso, an interesting fact, many of ww2 combat medics were pacifists, religious or otherwise who chose to serve without killing anyone, just saving lives. After initial scorn by fellow soldiers, many came to be respected for bravely carrying wounded from under enemy fire. Most famous example was certain man on Okinawa... Dont remember his name but he carried dozens of wounded marines from Japanese ambush site.
ReplyDeleteOnly an idiot scorns the medic.
DeleteDesmond Doss, at Hacksaw Ridge. Tried to save Japanese soldiers as well. Just kept going and going.
DeleteAnd... Good movie, also. Doesn't fake it up too much, really shows who Desmond was before and during the war. Visually horrifying, which is about the only way to describe fighting in the Pacific. So much horror in such a beautiful place.
That's the guy.
DeleteGotta watch the movie! I think I have heard of him on badass of the week website.
DeleteMedics were worth their weight in gold. Just ask any combat vet who needed them! Or had a buddy who needed them. Though not in Asian armies, so much. Less value placed on human lives, I guess.
DeleteAbout the only good thing about The Bocage was it was good training for skills needed later in the bitter fights for towns and cities. Of course the primary lesson was Don't fight in closed quarters like the Bocage, towns and cities. Nasty, but not as nasty as the terrain in central and north Italy.
ReplyDeleteAnd it was one hell of an oven for seasoning troops. Still close to the beachhead so supplies and medical teams were close (relatively) and way within range of indirect artillery fire.
When they eventually advanced beyond the reach of NGFS they really needed air support to fill that gap. Didn't always get it where they wanted it. (Yup, looking at you Ninth Air Force.)
DeleteThe Hurtgenwald was on the menu, later that year.
DeleteWe'll get there, eventually.
Delete(Don McCollor)...at the edge of NGFS range, old USS Texas pumped and flooded tanks and torpedo "blisters" to put a three-degree list on her so her big guns could reach a couple miles further inland...
DeleteClever lads those SWOs!
DeleteAnecdotical evidence points to at least one Tiger meeting BB main gun shell with predictable results. Less anecdotical tales abound of total devastation of Pazer Lehr division, which got square in center of pre-cobra carpet bombing. Tanks tossed aside like toys and buried under dirt, shellshocked crews etc.
DeleteWhen is the book coming out? I'd buy it and the next one in a heartbeat.
ReplyDeleteThis is the birthing, right here.
DeleteYou're getting the preview for free, once I flesh things out (end of the year) then we'll see about publishing it.
Oh, thanks.
Go for it, apply for Baen publishing maybe?
DeleteWe'll see. Good to know.
DeleteYou do indeed have a gift Sarge. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm blushing.
DeleteThanks.
Sarge, this would make a hell of a movie.
ReplyDeleteIt kind of plays like a movie in my head, which helps.
DeleteYoung and fit men. If you can keep most of the pieces in the same room they have a way of pulling through. Unfortunately some insults just aren't survivable. It's amazing how advanced U.S. field medicine was in WWII.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt due to the advances made near the end of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I. Military medicine had some pretty smart docs back in the day, still do.
DeleteSadly in the same way that the US Navy learned not only advanced night fighting, but damage control for high tuition rates from the Japanese in the Solomon Islands. A first-class education at a very steep rate of tuition. :(
Delete